Potty Training

When your child is ready to be potty trained you will know. He/she will show unavoidable signs that they no longer want to wear a nappy. This could be things like taking their nappy off all the time or trying to sit on the toilet after you do. Your child, so you’ll know the signs… right? Okay.

My daughter, Amour took notice of the toilet, often asking me to flush the toilet or to wash her hands after we changed her nappy she would also take her nappy off a lot during the day, so that’s how I knew she was ready.

Okay, you’ve seen the signs… now what?

It’s time to go shoppinggggg…

Here is a list of things you may need:

21 X Knickers / Pants

A clock

A potty or toilet seat

Stool

Disinfectant & Febreze

Wipes

& A whole load of patience

Before

When buying the underwear, I took Amour and let her choose which packets she wanted, because she’s so small for her age it was difficult finding ones that fitted her waist. Although, Amour is 2, when she started potty training she was still in 12-18months clothes.

Asda, Sainsburys, Pep&Co, Primark were the only places that had underwear in her size.

Whilst waiting for her nappies to run out, I would allow Amour in the bathroom with me, this was such an excitement for her as she would pull her stool and stand right in front of me everyyyy. Single. Morning. I also began telling her what she had left in her nappy when changing her it. I read this somewhere earlier this year, so I’m not sure how useful this was, however I still done it.

“Go Mour Mour, Go Mour Mour, Go”

Day 1 – 3

When Amour woke up, I took her nappy off and told her to put it in the nappy bin and we never looked back.

Amour originally, didn’t like the potty so she had a toilet seat (Aldi £4.50 & stool £4.50). I included Amour in everything to try and encourage her to be as excited as me, so together we placed a toilet seat and stool in both of our bathrooms and made a song out of it.

When sitting Amour on the toilet and telling her to wee she would look at me crazy, so I put on YouTube videos about going to the toilet to try and get her to understand

After around 15 minutes she used the toilet for the first time *yayyyyy*

I would make a HUGE deal out of using the toilet. As Amour is very extravagant (at home) every gasp, hi5 or clap gets her excited. So that’s exactly what I would play on. Doing this encouraged her to use the toilet, so much so, she spent the next two days going to the toilet by herself, even when she didn’t need it.

The first night was fine, when she woke up, I immediately took her to the toilet and she had a dry bed which was great, however, the second night, she wet her bed. Because of this I made it a POA in our house not to give Amour drinks after 6pm, 2 hours before her bed time. This was to prevent her having accidents in the bed.

“Bye bye wee wee”

DAY 4-7

Personally, this is where toilet training got hard. Amour had become bored of using the toilet and started having a million accidents. HOW??? I was so confused as to, how or why she was going so frequently. Sooo confused.

I am normally very observant with everything, maybe sometimes too much. I knew when it was Amours toilet time; she poops around 1 hour after eating and urinates 20-40 minutes after each drink so to me, I was outraged.

Dealing with accidents was such a dramatic time for me. Amour had the habit of saying ‘I need the toilet’ AFTER she had peed on my floor. Hiding my frustration, I would say “Oopsy Daisy” and then sit her on the toilet whilst I cleaned my floor with disinfectant and Febreeze. During her first accidents, I would throw her underwear away because if I am honest I was just really annoyed. She had 3 days with only one accident, at night, then suddenly, she is urinating around my house.

I first hit the roof, when I could smell poo after hanging out our painting to dry. So, I am walking around my house with Amour trying to find the poo, she’s giving my so many false directions, for me to then realise she had pooped herself. Yes, I know. I should have checked first, but I didn’t.

Now, this is where I hit my first major parent battle. How the hell, do you get the poo out of her underwear without putting it on her and putting it on the floor.

I try to deal with every issue in my life by turning it into a mathematical problem, I don’t know how or why but I do, I was completely stuck I didn’t know which angle to take… Instead, I called for her dad and after a flip of a coin, he dealt with it.

So, it was time for a different approach, after each drink we would wait 15 minutes and then sit her on the toilet and read books until she was ready, now sometimes she would say she didn’t need the toilet and after 5 minutes of nothing, we would believe her.

Even if she didn’t have a drink we would take her toilet every 15-45 minutes, depending on what we were doing. After every successful toilet trip, we would say “Bye bye wee wee” or “Bye bye poo poo” wash our hands together and then hi 5.

This worked, so we stuck with this.

To summarise; I found out Amours toilet routine and worked with it, using positive reinforcement to make toilet time a fun and rewarding place.

We took her toilet every 30minutes; Said goodbye to the toilet; Praised her for using the toilet and read to her whilst on the toilet. By day 8, we had got this down to the ‘T’ so with more practice she was officially potty trained.

Being potty trained to me doesn’t mean no accidents, it just means they are now actual accidents. The only time she has an incident is when she’s on her way to the toilet or if she’s too busy enjoying herself.

When Amour was at nursery she was generally very good having only 1 or 2 accidents a week, but this is because I pressured her nursery to keep up with my routine.

Oh yeah, If your child attends nursery USE NURSERY!!!!! I repeat USE THE NURSERY. Get your child familiar with potty training then send them into nursery as usual without a nappy and make sure they do not use them during the day.

When potty training, remember, to be consistent and to stick with this routing until it sticks with them and not with you, trust me. I went to Paris for 4 days, came back and had to do her potty training all over again because my brother put Amour back in nappies.

Please note all children are different and potty training can depend on your child’s habits and not their ability to use the potty/toilet.